Mission Accomplished Coast Guard`s Move From Isolated Station To Be A Fond Farewell.

January 17, 1988|By JOSEPH SCHWERDT, Staff Writer

PEANUT ISLAND -- It`s too old, too small and too secluded.

It`s antiquated and crowded. And the five-minute boat trip to get there and back gets awfully tiresome after a while.

But most of those assigned to the Coast Guard Lake Worth Station on Peanut Island wouldn`t have it any other way.

For every disadvantage to having a station on this manmade island near the Lake Worth Inlet, there is a clear advantage. For every reason to leave, there is another to stay.

For all its faults, there is something about this place that makes some who aren`t here want to come here and those who don`t want to be here sorry to leave.

``A lot of people don`t like it when they first get here,`` said Chief Warrant Officer Jim Allen, who just requested a six-month extension to stay on the island. ``It`s old and out on an island. But once they`ve been here a while, they really get to like it. It grows on you.``

It doesn`t take long, many say.

Imagine working on a lush sub-tropical island fringed by a clean, sandy beach and surrounded by crystal clear water. Imagine working in a beautiful, historic white clapboard house with arched French windows and a big front porch.

``This looks like a Coast Guard station,`` said Steve Carter, based at Peanut Island for almost three years. ``The new stations they are building now are modern and modular. This is a Coast Guard station.``

But the Coast Guard last week took a major step toward abandoning the Peanut Island station built in 1936. A 2.5-acre parcel on the Intracoastal Waterway north of Blue Heron Boulevard was purchased by the Coast Guard on Tuesday and will eventually house a new station, officials said.

Barring changes prompted by a $100 million cut in the Coast Guard`s budget, construction on the new station is scheduled to begin in 1990 and opening is set for 1992.

The change is necessary, officials said.

Three 41-foot boats and the 95-foot cutter Cape Shoalwater would be stationed there, with two always available for patrols and search-and-rescue operations.

There now are two 41-foot crafts at Peanut Island; only one operates at a time.

The Cape Shoalwater is moored there only during manatee season.

Allen said the extra boat is desperately needed. The Lake Worth station ran 950 search-and-rescue missions last year, 905 the year before. It was the fifth-busiest station in the country, and the busiest with only one active patrol boat.

There will be 54 people permanently assigned to the new station, with at least half living there. There are 39 now permanently based at Peanut Island and only those recently assigned live there until they can find housing on the mainland.

The current station is built for only 14 people.

And then there are the costs of transporting groceries, supplies and personnel to and from the mainland. Isolation has a hefty price tag. The liberty boat makes 6,000 trips a year back and forth from the Port of Palm Beach.

The island location makes it virtually impossible to build a new station or expand the old one, Allen said. A small cinder block storage building, the size of a walk-in closet, recently was built for $9,500.

The new station will cost about $4 million. To build it on the island would cost about $8 million.

``If it was only the size of the building or the transportation back and forth, we wouldn`t build a new station,`` said Lt. Wayne Troxler, a civil engineer stationed in Norfolk, Va. ``But the combination of the two make a new station necessary. It will save a lot of money in the long run.``

Most of those now stationed at Peanut Island won`t be there when the move takes place. The maximum tour at a Coast Guard base is three years, unless extensions are approved. But many said they will hate to see the old station left behind.

To the rear of the Coast Guard station is the fallout shelter built for President John F. Kennedy in 1962. In the event Kennedy had been at his family`s home in Palm Beach during a nuclear attack, he would have had safe lodging and a strategic communications base set up at the shelter.

Now gutted and littered with beer bottles, the shelter serves as a reminder of the island`s history.